Friday, October 12, 2012

Working from home. Freelance Services America.

In 2010, on the days that they worked, 24 percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at home, and 83 percent did some or all of their work at their workplace.

Men and women were about equally likely to do some or all of their work at home in 2010—22.9 percent of employed men compared with 24.5 percent of employed women.

In 2010, multiple jobholders were nearly twice as likely to work at home as were single jobholders in 2010—39 percent compared with 22 percent.

Self-employed workers were three times more likely than wage and salary workers to have done some work at home on days worked in 2010—64 percent compared with 19 percent.

In 2010, on the days that they worked, 36 percent of employed people age 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher did some work at home, compared with only 10 percent of those with less than a high school diploma.

These data are from the American Time Use Survey. To learn more, see "American Time Use Survey—2010 Results" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-11-0919.

Large counties ranked by December 2010—December 2011 percent increase in employment

In 1999, workers in all four nontraditional arrangements accounted for 9.3 percent of total employment, compared with 9.9 percent in 1997 and 9.8 percent in 1995. Although independent contractors remained the largest group numerically, their share of total employment declined slightly between 1997 and 1999. The proportions of total employment in the other three arrangements changed little over the 1995-99 period.

"Independent contractors" are workers identified as independent contractors, independent consultants, or freelance workers, whether they were self-employed or wage and salary workers. "On-call workers" are called to work as needed, though they can be scheduled to work for several days or weeks in a row. "Temporary help agency workers" are paid by a temporary help agency, whether or not their job is actually temporary. "Contract company workers" are employed by a company that provides their services to others under contract; they are usually assigned to only one customer and work at the customer’s worksite.

From December 2010 to December 2011, employment increased in 266 of the 322 largest U.S. counties. The U.S. average weekly wage decreased over the year by 1.7 percent to $955 in the fourth quarter of 2011.

In December 2011, national employment was 131.3 million, up by 1.4 percent or 1.8 million jobs, from December 2010. The 322 U.S. counties with 75,000 or more jobs accounted for 70.7 percent of total U.S. employment and 76.4 percent of total wages. These 322 counties had a net job growth of 1.2 million over the year, accounting for 68.8 percent of the overall U.S. employment increase.

Kern, California, posted the largest increase, with a gain of 5.3 percent over the year, compared with national job growth of 1.4 percent. Within Kern, the largest employment increase occurred in natural resources and mining, which gained 8,896 jobs over the year (16.7 percent).

The over-the-year decline in average weekly wages is one of only five declines in the history of the series, which dates back to 1978. The decline from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the fourth quarter of 2011 is the only one in which employment simultaneously grew over the year. Total wages decreased by 0.5 percent over the year.